Why Blackmailing Your Dream Partners Is A Bad Strategy…

How Alex Becker got me to think he’s literally the coolest person on earth by just being a cool person.

On today’s episode Russell talks about the difference between trying to build a relationship with someone the wrong way and the right way. Here is some of the awesome stuff you will hear on today’s episode:

What has happened to Russell 3 times now while trying to buy domains.

Why extorting money from someone is guaranteed to backfire when trying to build a relationship.

And hear an example of how you can actually build a good relationship with Russell, and you could both benefit.

So listen here to find out why extorting money from someone is never a good way to build a relationship.

Full Episode Transcript

What’s up everybody? This is Russell Brunson, welcome to the Marketing Secrets podcast. I just jumped in the wrong car. I’m just going to be moving from this car into the other car as we start we this thing off, and my guess is it’s already turning out to be an amazing day.

Alright everybody, welcome back. I’m now in the jeep, a much better driving experience here. Our house is the middle of a remodel thing so all the cars are out, and I just jumped in the wrong one, and both my keys were in it, so it started…anyway, long story.

But I want to jump into something really, really cool and important and special for all of you guys today. So I want to talk about how to be smart about doing deals with people. In the last few months there have been a couple of domains that I have wanted and needed. Some were based on our trademark, some based on other things, and sometimes people are cool when you’re like, “Hey can I buy the domain?” They’re like, “Sure, here you can buy it.”

But what’s happened now, 3 times, not once, not twice but thrice, someone owns the domain and we’re like, “Hey, can we buy the domain?” And they know who I am right, so the first thing they do is lick their greedy chops. And they’re like, “Yeah, I’ll give it to you…” and literally one guy wants to give me a domain for a million, 1.3 million dollars, insane and it’s not even that good of a domain. But it’s one that’s a trademark term that we have. And I was like, “Dude, I’m not going to give you 1.3 million dollars for this domain.” And he’s like, “Well, I want to set up a relationship with you guys.” And I’m like, “This is not the way to do it, extorting me for 1.3 million dollars, you’re a moron.”

Same thing happened with this other domain, where this person was negotiating and we were trying to give him like….same thing, he knew who I was and it was a branded domain, it was something that like we could get our lawyers to get, but I’m just trying to be nice to them. “Hey, can we buy it from you? You can’t use it. It’s something that would mean a lot to me.” And they’re like, “Oh, we’ll do it for this much.” And like insane numbers and things and negotiations. And what’s funny, all three of these people, all three of them said that they had the domain because they wanted to build a relationship with me, but then they tried to blackmail me into paying them a bunch of money for this domain.

I was like that is literally the worst possible way you could ever build a relationship. All I want to do from this point forward is, I can’t even say it out loud because it will be on public record someday. It’s just I don’t want anything nice for those people. It’s a word, if I ever see or hear their names again, I will have an instant bad taste in my mouth and it’s the worst possible way to build a relationship.

So I say that on the one side. All three people who had these domains were people who were struggling who wanted to build a relationship because they thought that if they had a relationship with me it would change everything. But then they went about it completely wrong.

Now flip to the other side of the coin. Some of you guys know Alex Becker. Alex Becker is a dude who is super successful, he’s got multiple 7 figure companies, an 8 figure company, just a smart, smart dude. And I messaged him because he’s got this software platform that’s really cool. I was like, “Hey man, your software is cool. Is that a custom code you guys wrote or a script.” And he’s like, “We custom built it.” And was kind of telling me about it. I was like, “Cool.” And then I was like, ‘I’m building something almost identical, I will literally be a competitor of yours, but yours is awesome. Can I license it from you?” And he was like, “How about this, if we can jump on and do a 30 minute call talking about your book funnel, I’ll just give you the whole thing for free.”

I was like, “What? Are you serious?” And he was like, “Yeah man, no licensing fees necessary, I’ll just give it to you for free because I would love to pick your brain for 30 minutes.” Now look at the two opposite ends of the spectrum. Alex could have easily been like, “Dude, no. You’re a moron. We would literally be direct competitors, you would be taking money out of my pocket.” But instead he’s like, “No, I want to build a relationship with you. If you did a call with me I will give it to you for free.” And just made it this super cool, exciting thing where now every time I see Alex Becker, every time I see his face pop up in a newsfeed or a YouTube ad or anything, I’ll be like, “That dude is awesome.” And I’ll never forget it.

And someday down the line he’ll be like, “Hey man, can you do this one weird thing for me?” and I’ll be like, “You know what, you are awesome. I have a good taste in my mouth every time I see your name because you treated me well. Because you actually wanted to build a relationship and you were smart about it. You didn’t blackmail me or try to make it tough, or make the deal hard. You were just like, “You know what, Russell wants this, I’m just going to give it to him because something good could happen in the future.” And it was just an easy way to do it.

And I want to stress how important that is. For me, on the receiving end of it, I know how it makes me feel. On the giving end, those are the types of things I try to do as well. I’m always trying to pay attention to those things. Like, I could try to get some money from this person, or I could just do them a favor. And doing them a favor for me, and for all of you guys it should be worth a heck of a lot more than money.

So anyway, I just wanted to share that with you guys because everyone’s got opportunities to make an impression and it’s happening all the time. And if there’s somebody who you’d want to work with, who you can help in some way, don’t try to blackmail them to get money or whatever. Be smart about it, give it to them, build a relationship, a legitimate relationship by being awesome and doing something cool because that’s how you build relationships the right way.

Anyway, that’s all I got. I’m going to the office today, we just had a whole planning meeting with Stu McLaren on this new thing we’re doing, it’s so exciting and you guys are going to freak out. I worked on my book last night. The Traffic Secrets book has officially begun. I was doodling all night last night, which was fun. So many cool things I wish I could share with you all, but you will see them. You’ll start seeing them unfold over the next few months and over the next year. But some really cool, amazing things. So that’s what I’m giving you now. Alright you guys, appreciate you all, have an amazing day and we’ll talk to you soon. Bye everybody.

Who is Russell Brunson?

Over the past 10 years, Russell has built a following of over a million entrepreneurs, sold hundreds of thousands of copies of his books, popularized the concept of sales funnels, and co-founded a software company called ClickFunnels that helps tens of thousands of entrepreneurs quickly get their message out to the marketplace.